Here are glimpses of some of the victims of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

DOROTHY CHIARCHIARO

A Kiss for Christmas

It was Christmas Eve, 1962, and Nick Chiarchiaro was concluding a visit to his Aunt Betty in Park Slope, Brooklyn. He gave his cousin, Rose, a peck on the cheek -- when skinny Dorothy Arguelles, her friend, piped up: ''Aren't you going to give me a Christmas kiss, too?''

The reply that first sprang to mind was no. He barely knew her and had never given her a thought. But politely, he leaned over. Aiming for her cheek, he hit her lips -- and was hit by lightning. ''My knees buckled,'' he said. ''I left the house, I didn't know where I was going. I just knew I had to be with her.''

Three months later -- heart pounding -- he asked her out. They went to a tiny cocktail lounge, on Love Lane in Brooklyn Heights, and ordered brandies. A year later, after Mr. Chiarchiaro asked her mother's permission, they were engaged.

During the 37 years that followed, he rarely experienced an hour of boredom. ''Movies, dinners, friends,'' he said. Three children. For her, a job at Fred Alger Management -- to pay for clothes filling four bedroom closets. And a constant game of sparring. They argued, he said, about everything. ''That's what kept us going. We were oil and water, black and white. In public, she called me Mr. Moroney -- short for moron. The neighbor girls called us the Bickersons.''

''Kind,'' he said, thinking of words to characterize her. ''Considerate. And cantankerous.''

WILLIAM FEEHAN

The Can-Do Bond

When he was not fighting fires, William Feehan walked the fields of Gettysburg, toured Churchill's War Room and read naval history. Military culture, with its embrace of tradition and tactics, appealed to Mr. Feehan much the way firefighting did, said his son, William Feehan Jr.

He remembered his father tracing the path of Pickett's Charge, mapped in his mind by accounts he had read in a novel, ''The Killer Angels.'' The senior William Feehan, a New York City firefighter who ascended through the ranks to serve as first deputy fire commissioner, recommended the book often.

One who read it at his suggestion, Firefighter Vincent Panaro, was there when the towers fell and Commissioner Feehan was killed. At his wake, two days later, Firefighter Panaro stood sentry in his dress blues at his mentor's coffin. ''He refused to leave until he was relieved,'' the younger Mr. Feehan said.

It was that sort of bond, that sort of Semper Fi can-doism, that Commissioner Feehan thought was intrinsic to the firefighter ranks, his family said. It explained, he thought, how people, whether they be soldiers or firefighters, found it within themselves to charge into harm's way to save complete strangers.

When he died, Commissioner Feehan, 71, was the oldest and highest-ranking firefighter ever to die in the line of duty.

THOMAS G. O'HAGAN

On a Different Path

When Thomas G. O'Hagan was 7, he tried to stamp out a fire in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, but his pants caught fire. He ended up with second- and third-degree burns. ''Even with all that,'' said his brother Raymond, ''and all the pain that burns cause, Tommy wanted to be a fireman.''

In a family of 11, with his grandfather, father and two brothers being police officers, Thomas O'Hagan's decision to become a firefighter, and later be promoted to lieutenant, set him apart.

''Tom was very different from the rest of us,'' said the eldest of the five O'Hagan brothers, Frank, a banker. ''While the rest of us are kind of quiet, Tom was very loquacious and extremely generous with his time, money and advice.''

Lieutenant O'Hagan, 43, lived in Riverdale, where he grew up, and was an enthusiastic firehouse chef who knew all the best recipes because they were his own. He had been assigned to Engine Company 6 a few weeks before Sept. 11.

If anyone needed a hand, his brothers said, Tom O'Hagan's voice was first to be heard. He was dedicated to his wife, Andrea, and their twins, Patrick and Pierce. After his mother died in May, Lieutenant O'Hagan visited his father at least three times a week and often more. ''He was there for dad a lot,'' Frank O'Hagan said. ''That speaks volumes about his generosity.''

CHRISTOPHER MOZZILLO

A Guide to Living Out Loud

Some people live life out loud. Christopher Mozzillo lived life out louder.

How to Stop Your Mom and Sister From Fighting at the Dinner Table: Take a fork, pretend to ram it in your forehead and shout, ''You're driving me nuts!'' Or bang your head against the wall, whimpering, ''Help me, help me!''

How to Get Your Girlfriend out of the Ocean for Lunch: Roll her, soaking wet, up the sand, laughing as you yell, ''Chicken cutlet here!'' (Escort her to the showers, please.)

Cook only masterpieces. Ski only black diamond trails. Drink till someone else passes out first. Be president of your fraternity at St. John's, a king of the bar scene at the Jersey Shore, the best at trivia because you have a photographic memory.

Take the firefighter's exam at 18 and wait impatiently all those years, working as an environmental scientist, until you are called -- finally! -- at 25. Be so upbeat that, at 27, you think you know what the future holds: husband, father, upstate homeowner, lieutenant, captain, chief.

Love being in the fraternity known as Engine Company 55 in Manhattan's Little Italy so much that you come home to Staten Island boasting, ''Today the captain let me hold the knob of the hose!''

GREGORY WACHTLER

I.D. and Aspirations

On Sept. 9, Gregory Wachtler took his father and a cousin from Belgium up to his office on the 93rd floor of 1 World Trade Center. It was Sunday and the building was closed, but Mr. Wachtler flashed his company I.D. to the guard. A research associate at Fred Alger Management, he had his run of the place.

They stared out at Manhattan from the conference room. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows. The Empire State Building across the way. A bird's eye view of the street in SoHo where Mr. Wachtler had begun renting a studio only eight months earlier.

This was the outlook on life that Mr. Wachtler had at age 25. ''He became really responsible, very conscious of what he was doing,'' his father, Paul Wachtler, said. ''It was a nice life for him.''

Gregory Wachtler had finally made the big leap across the Hudson River, from the suburbs of New Jersey to the electric dance of Manhattan. He went club-hopping. He went in-line skating along the Hudson. He played tennis at Chelsea Piers. Just a year ago, he and his father went to see a Pink Floyd concert. The city seemed to be full of music.

His father recently began clearing out his son's apartment. Mr. Wachtler was just settling in, and a bed he had ordered was still en route. His tennis rackets were nowhere to be found. But his body has been recovered, along with the I.D. that always got him into the World Trade Center.

MICHAEL PAUL RAGUSA

W.W.M.D.?

Michael Paul Ragusa was not a mountain climber, a sculptor, a scholar. He was not anything like that, his loved ones say. Being a firefighter was enough for him. ''He did things to make others happy,'' said his fiance, Jennifer Trapani. ''That's how he made himself happy.''

Mike Ragusa, 29, joined the Fire Department nearly two years ago. He was assigned to Engine Company 250, but was working at Engine Company 279 on Sept. 11.

He was single-minded, said his sister, Christine Saladeen. ''If we all lined up outside the World Trade Center and yelled, 'Mikey stop!,' he still would have ran in.''

When word of Firefighter Ragusa's disappearance percolated through his neighborhood of Bergen Beach, Brooklyn, dozens of people camped out on his parents' lawn, on their patio furniture and on their living room floor. Strangers who did not know his name came by with fruit baskets to tell of how he helped fix their fences or change their tires.

He may not have been a sculptor, but he was a plumber, and if a friend's pipe burst at midnight, he was there. He may not have been a scholar, but he was a good man. His friends had a saying about him -- W.W.M.D.: What Would Mikey Do?

BRADLEY VAN HOORN

'A Lot of Kid in Him'

Bradley Van Hoorn showed up for his sophomore year at Yale with a mounted caribou head, a gift from his father. The two, along with Mr. Hoorn's mother and sister, crammed the head into a van with Mr. Hoorn's luggage and drove from Richland, near Kalamazoo, Mich., to New Haven.

Mr. Hoorn had warned his roommates.

''These city slicker kids that lived with him thanked us for the moose we brought,'' his mother, Kathy, recalled. ''I don't think they knew the difference between a moose, an elk and a caribou, but they were wonderful kids.''

After graduation, Mr. Hoorn, 22, worked for an investment firm on the 93rd floor of the World Trade Center's north tower. He saw the city as an adventure, but lamented the lack of tennis courts.

He hoped to eventually head back west in his red Porsche (another gift from his father), and maybe even someday become a teacher, like his mother.

She remembers his sheepish grins when she caught her son reading novels while he was supposed to be studying. In one sitting, Mr. Hoorn could finish a Grisham or a Clancy, and he devoured the Harry Potters.

James Patrick White was sitting over a beer in a bar in Hoboken, N.J., with two high school buddies when they got the idea. They would take off for Spain and run with the bulls at Pamplona.

The night before the run they drank a lot of beer and were so worried they would oversleep and miss the bulls that they slept on the street in their clothes. Somehow, they survived the stampede. ''It was very scary,'' said Tom Kane, one of the friends. ''We kind of leaned on each other to get the courage to do it.''

Mr. White, 34, a Cantor Fitzgerald bond broker, was the oldest of five children, three of them boys. He played varsity tennis in high school in Hightstown, N.J., skiied, rode mountain bikes and ran the New York City Marathon three times, twice with his brother Mike. It took him 4 hours, 40 minutes the first time. Then four hours. ''The third time we were lazy,'' said Mike, who had run one year with their brother Greg. ''Our time wasn't so good. But we finished.''

JEAN CAVIASCO DePALMA

One Last Girls' Night Out

Just think of that Saturday before the tragedy as, well, girls' night out at the World Trade Center. Jean Caviasco DePalma made sure her teenagers, Drew and Jamie, were O.K., then left home in Newfoundland, N.J., to stay the night with Michele Caviasco, her baby sister, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. ''We just hung out together,'' Ms. Caviasco said. They even went for a run along the East River, saying all the sister things.

Then a subway delivered them to the trade center, where Ms. DePalma, 42, happened to work as a forensic accountant on the 100th floor of the north tower at Marsh & McLennan.

But this was Saturday night, so they remained downstairs on the plaza between the twin towers and watched a free performance of the Twyla Tharp dance company. Afterward, they strolled around, past those buildings that no longer exist, on their way to ice cream at Ben & Jerry's.

Back in the apartment, they laughed a lot while watching Ms. Caviasco's tape of Madonna in concert. The sisters had always been close, even though Jean was the oldest of five and Michele the youngest, growing up in Wood Ridge, N.J. Their friendship rekindled after Ms. DePalma's divorce two years ago.

''I remember the closeness we had that day,'' Ms. Caviasco said. ''I feel lucky to have had that last bit of her.''

One year, before he moved to New Jersey, he took his mother to New York. One year he took her to Washington for a tour of the White House. Some years, she would simply visit his apartment and cook. This year, for their annual vacation, Mary Keohane and her son, John, 41, were planning to meet in Florida on Saturday, Sept. 15.

He had loved the idea of travel since he was a boy building model airplanes and visiting his grandmother's house, which sat in the flight path of San Francisco International Airport. As an adult, Mr. Keohane -- an energetic, good-humored yet quiet lawyer at the Zurich company, according to his sister, Darlene -- liked to say he had visited everywhere except Antarctica.

Mary Keohane's bags were already packed when her phone rang in Northern California around 7 a.m. on Sept. 11. It was her son saying he had safely left 1 Liberty Plaza, where he worked, and met up three blocks away with his partner, Mike Lyons, who worked nearby.

Hearing a loud noise, Mr. Keohane told his mother that a third plane had hit a building. The connection was lost. The second tower was collapsing, spreading darkness through the streets -- Mr. Keohane became separated from Mr. Lyons and was hit by debris. Weeks later, the Keohanes received a letter from a priest at a downtown church, saying he had found Mr. Keohane about two minutes later and performed last rites.

JOANNE RUBINO

A Mother's Dream

Hers was a life of simplicity and devotion. She worked, she came home, and she took care of her mother.

Austere, perhaps, but Joanne Rubino never made it seem that she was missing anything important.

''My Joanne really was happy being how she was,'' said her mother, Antoinette. ''She wasn't asking for much in life.''

Besides heading to her office in the tax department of Marsh & McLennan for more than 20 years, Ms. Rubino, 45, rarely left her mother. On weekends they went to crafts shows. In the fall, they drove through upstate New York, enjoying the scenery, the fresh air, and each other's company.

''I used to tell her, 'Every mother should have a daughter like you,' '' said Mrs. Rubino, 74. ''So thoughtful, and to other people too.''

Ms. Rubino couldn't pass a homeless person without giving money. One blustery winter day she gave a street person her scarf. ''She figured he needed it more than she did,'' Mrs. Rubino said.

When her mother became seriously ill a few years ago, Ms. Rubino had to stop visiting her brother, Anthony, in Louisville, Ky.

''She thought of the family before she thought of herself,'' Mr. Rubino said. ''That's the most outstanding point I can make about Joanne.''

EDWARD R. HENNESSY JR.

Mad About Guitars

Edward R. Hennessy Jr. tried baseball and hockey and all the other sports his dad loved, but as a little boy he told his father that sports simply did not interest him. Then in second grade he found his true love: music. He took up the clarinet first, then the saxophone and later keyboards, bass drum and guitar.

At Belmont High School in Massachusetts and at Harvard, where he graduated cum laude in 1988, he played in the marching bands. He wrote part of the 1989 Hasty Pudding Club musical-comedy show at Harvard. At the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, where he studied information science, he arranged musical numbers and even conducted the orchestra.

''Ted was mad about screaming guitars,'' recalled Melanie Salisbury, his wife of 10 years. ''The Ramones was his favorite and Spinal Tap a close second. He recorded a lot of his own music.''

At family gatherings he would often slip away to the piano with his niece and nephew.

''He would teach them basic notes and the fundamentals of playing the piano,'' said his brother-in-law, Jim Kelleher.

Mr. Hennessy, 35, father of two, was on his way to Los Angeles on American Airlines Flight 11 on Sept. 11 to consult on a distribution system for AOL Time Warner's Elektra records.

Some grandfathers teach grandsons to fish. Terence E. Adderley Jr.'s taught him to read The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Adderley, known as Ted, was born with business in his blood and relished it. His grandfather, William Russell Kelly, founded Kelly Services, a temp agency based in Michigan.

By the time Mr. Adderley was 12, he was picking his own stocks. He went to his grandfather's university -- Vanderbilt -- and joined his grandfather's fraternity, Sigma Chi. In the summers, he worked at Kelly and practiced dry wit. He teased co-workers about trivial mistakes by signing letters to them in a script similar to the company's chief executive -- his father, Terence E. Adderley.

At 22, he found Wall Street an easy fit. He shared a preference for French cuffs and collars with his new boss, the veteran Wall Street money manager David Alger.

Mr. Adderley planned ahead and family always figured prominently. His sister Elizabeth's 17th birthday fell in October. From her brother, she received a watch with a blue band (her favorite color) and gloves. Mr. Adderley had bought them for her by August, along with a pink scarf. It was not pashmina.

''He didn't care for pashmina,'' said Mr. Adderley's mother, Mary Beth. ''If he was going to buy something for his sister, it was going to be cashmere.''

MICHAEL D. MULLAN

Things We'll Never Know

Michael D. Mullan honored his father by following him into the military, he honored his mother by following her into nursing, and he honored himself by becoming a firefighter, his brother, Patrick, said in a eulogy.

Sometimes Firefighter Mullan combined his vocations, like when he told a young boy named Steve who had a 106-degree fever that if he let him put in an I.V., he would get a trip to the firehouse.

Steve has a picture of himself with Firefighter Mullan, 34, who worked at Ladder Company 12 in Manhattan's Chelsea section, next to the fire pole.

''Michael loved to play the piano,'' said his mother, Theresa. ''He played the piano like Jerry Lee Lewis, and when he got up, the piano went into cardiac arrest.''

A captain in the Army Reserve, he was planning to become a nurse practitioner. He lived with his parents in Bayside, Queens, and had a girlfriend.

''I know what his goals were, but what would he have attained and achieved?'' Mrs. Mullan said. ''Would he have married, and been a father? We'll never know.''

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports,
and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appears in print on December 25, 2001, on Page B00007 of the National edition with the headline: A NATION CHALLENGED: PORTRAITS OF GRIEF: THE VICTIMS; A Memorable Christmas Eve, a Girls' Night Out, and an Ideal Daughter. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe